Some readers may recall your finish-up-my-Seaview build was one of your aforementioned distractions this year. You KNOW I'm one of your biggest fans, and have been following the TOS build videos with relish! (Can't wait to see her in person, and since I'm lucky enough to live in the L.A. area, you know I CAN!) You also know I've got one of those big CR Disney Nautili well along on my OWN builder's ways, so we'll be comparing and contrasting approaches and final results somewhere down the line. It'll be fun to run them together someday too—as I continue my search for decent local water...

Hang in there, bro'—I'll be watching!Best,Jeff Porteous

Sure writing is easy: just sit staring at a blank page until the drops of blood start forming on your forehead.

Jeff thanks sooo much and do find that water soon before I have to start replacing seals from lack of us. My boats need some water and LA seems to lack any interest in local runs or RC subs! Of all places.

Thanks Jeff. It will stay on the stand it has to for the power sources. It's a studio model and that's how they were built. The Smithsonian wouldn't light the original so they hung it. Not right. And the restoration in the 90s wasn't right either. She never looked close to that.

Good eye in catching that Jeff. I was contacted by a group recently for it's restoration back to the original 60s filming. They asked me to head it up. Imagine that.

More on that later. She's still a big sub in space no matter how you think of it.

If you do come to D.C. to do the restoration, I will gladly volunteer to be your 'go-fer'......just to have an opportunity to actually get close to the original. (and I mean more than just staring at it in it's current glass case)

I'm new to this board and just browsing through the various pages when your post caught my eye. That is an awesome model you have built there. Truely enspiring workmanship. I'll check out your build videos shortly.

I'm a Star Trek fan, though wouldn't go as far as to say I'm a Trekkie. I'm currently building a 1:72 Revell Gato (my first sub) having been building surface targets to date, and in doing the reasearch for sub building came across the Starfleet Yokosuka Drydock guys in Japan. Don't know if you've seen their work but they build Startrek models (and others) as working submarines and fly them underwater in swimming pools. A model this big would be a bit of a mission but have you thought about doing a smaller one as a working sub model?

Anyway, awesome work my friend and I look forward to checking out your videos.